Jack Frake (31 page)

“Why, thank you, Major, and best of luck to you,” said Redmagne, rising. “I’m sure you’ll score a glorious victory, though I still say there are no smugglers in this vicinity. Lud, you’ll be assaulting that pretty little hill and frightening all the cuddly rabbitkins from their warrens!” He held out his hand.

Major Leigh shut his eyes briefly, then shook the man’s hand. “Best of luck to you, Mr. Trigg, in your farming endeavors. It seems a pastime most suited to a gentleman of your, er, talents.”

“Thank you, Major, for your hospitality, and good night.” Redmagne gave the officer a broad, almost imbecilic grin, touched his hat, and left the tent.

Redmagne rode out of the camp with the knowledge, subtly extracted from the major’s cautious but wearied mind, that Jack Frake and Richard Claxon were not there, but had been taken to Gwynnford.

Jack Frake was put on the cart with Richard Claxon and the bodies of their colleagues. The cart smelled of fish. The cart, Pannell and his six men followed the column of soldiers from Penlilly as far as a fork in the county road. Then Pannell assigned three of his men to take the cart into Gwynnford, while he and the other three accompanied the column on the road that led north to Marvel.

Jack Frake sat, cuffed as before, in a corner of the cart, near Richard Claxon’s head, his sight locked on the bodies of the men that lay along the
cartbed’s length. Claxon clutched his Bible to his chest, and his lips moved in silent prayer. Jack Frake did not think his colleague knew where he was. With every jar of the cart wheels over a hole or a rock, Claxon’s eyes would squeeze shut in pain. After a while, Jack Frake noticed that the Bible had slipped from Claxon’s grip, and that his eyes stared steadily at the gray sky. The cart rolled over a bump, but the eyes did not blink, the face did not flinch. Jack Frake closed the eyes, then reached down and put the Bible back in the boy’s dead hand.

In time, the road led into Trelowe. Jack Frake did not realize where he was until he began to recognize some of the fences, fields and trees they passed. The cart rumbled by his former home, which was now a tavern. A sign-board featuring the heads of three ewes swung gently in the breeze over the door. A sulky and two saddled mounts stood tethered to a post in front. He heard singing coming from the cottage, and laughter. A woman paused in the task of drawing water from the well to watch the cart and its escort pass by.

It was Huldah Leith.

Jack Frake recognized her, and she recognized the face in the retreating cart. The bucket rope slipped from her hands as they shot up to her face to muffle a scream. Then he saw her run back inside the cottage.

Jack Frake felt the beginnings of a terrible mixture of emotions rise inside him — regret, bitterness, and anger — but they subsided almost as quickly as he felt them. He was too exhausted to sort them out and wonder about them. He was looking to his left, to the Channel and the cliff, remembering his cubbyhole.

He did not notice the two receding figures that appeared on the road to watch the cart. They were his mother and Isham Leith.

Redmagne arrived in Gwynnford wearing a dark cloak over his silks. He had removed the mole from his cheek and discarded the white wig. He still looked like a gentleman, but a lesser one. There were people about on Jetty Street, but no one stopped to stare at him. He had two destinations in the town: the Sea Siren, and the jail behind Constable Jubel Skeats’s house. He tethered his mount in the kitchen yard of the Sea Siren, and went through the back door. He told the cook to fetch Hiram Trott. The innkeeper came back and Redmagne led him outside. He told Trott what had happened at Penlilly, and what was to happen tomorrow near Marvel. “I don’t know how much was told Pannell. You may be implicated, Mr. Trott. I wanted to give you warning.”

Trott looked crestfallen, and his face was busy with confusion and anxiety. But part of Redmagne’s information was not news to him. After a moment, he said, “They brought poor Jack in with the others, sir. Nobody’s been talking about anything else all day.”

“Any Revenue men inside?” asked Redmagne, nodding to the kitchen door.

“None of Pannell’s crew. They don’t come here anymore, anyway. They’ve been favoring the Saucy Maiden for some time now.”

Redmagne frowned. “You said they brought in Jack. What about Mr. Claxon? His leg was smashed.”

Trott shook his head. “He was dead, too, sir. They buried him with the others in a hole up in the fields.” He wrung his hands in his apron. “You going to try for Jack?” Redmagne nodded. “Need help? You know I’m good with a cudgel.”

Redmagne shook his head, then took the man’s hand and shook it. “Take care, Mr. Trott. Get out if you can.” Then he turned, mounted his horse, and was gone.

“What to do?” muttered Trott to himself. “What to do?”

The jail behind the constable’s house was a short brick structure with a row of six cells, built primarily to detain drunken sailors. The cells had no windows. The doors were of iron-braced oak. A trap door on the bottom of each allowed the passage of meals. Redmagne left his mount tied to a post in the alley, scaled the wall that contained the jail, and went from door to door, calling after Jack Frake through the traps. No one answered. He strode to the back door of the house he knew so well, for it was in here that he had been interrogated by Pannell and Rear Admiral Harle years ago, and from the first cell by the door that he was rescued by Skelly and ten gang-members. He peered through the tiny window. Two Revenue men were in the kitchen, leaning back on chairs, their boots on the table, smoking their pipes. Mrs. Skeats, he assumed, had retired. There was a ring of keys on the table near one of the men.

Redmagne took two pistols from under his belt, twisted the barrels, stood back from the door, and was ready to cock the hammers and kick the door in, when he heard screeches of rusty hinges behind him.

“Drop the wedges, Mr. O’Such!” boomed a voice. “There are two on your back ready to talk!”

Redmagne lowered his hands and dropped the pistols. The two Revenue men inside came rushing out. He turned around and saw Constable
Jubel Skeats and the third Revenue man. Both had pistols leveled at his head. The two other Revenue men grabbed his arms and snapped cuffs on his wrists. Skeats stepped forward and grinned at Redmagne. “Pleased to make your acquaintance again, Mr. O’Such. We thought someone’d try to hijack the lad.”

Mr. Fix waved a hand at the open door of the cell he and Skeats came from. “Welcome back, Mr. O’Such. Your cell awaits you, and you won’t be leaving it this time!”

“Where’s Jack Frake?” asked Redmagne.

“Sound asleep in the next cell, sir,” said Skeats. “He’s had a trying day, you know.” He grinned. “I don’t suppose you’ll be leaving us a shilling for our trouble this time. But meals are six shillings a day, if you want anything better than soup.”

Redmagne smiled graciously. “Then tell Mrs. Skeats to prepare a pair of her famous mincemeat pies, the ones I know she sells to the inns here, who pass them off as their own. One for me, and one for the boy. And coffee, with a dash of rum to keep the bones warm.”

“She’ll be pleased to hear it, sir,” chuckled Skeats. “It ain’t often we get a gentleman for a guest!”

Redmagne turned to Mr. Fix. “Before I’m locked up, may I see Mr. Frake?”

“All right, but just a look. He got roughed up at Penlilly today, but he’s all right.”

A
T DAWN, SOLDIERS EMERGING FROM THEIR TENTS PAUSED IN THE CHILLY
air to look up at the blue sky, and then at the hill, and saw a small banner floating on a staff on the eastern side of it. Major Leigh and Henoch Pannell, from the second floor of the Villers mansion, where they and their aides had spent the night, used the officer’s spyglass to look at it. “It’s one of ours,” said the major. “What the deuce?”

“It’s a Customs jack, Major, with His Majesty’s arms removed by white paint. A provocative desecration, I must say!”

“Where did they get it?”

The Commissioner shrugged. “Damn them to blazes! I should like to know that myself!”

“But I never heard of a gang adopting colors, Mr. Pannell,” said the major. He paused. “I’m not certain I could fire on that hill now.”

Pannell glanced sharply at the officer. “It’s merely a rag, Major. Don’t let it deflect you from your duty. Those men up there have an elevated sense of themselves, it seems. But then all criminals do, don’t they?” He paused. “I think you should begin firing on that hill.”

Major Leigh put down his spyglass and drummed his fingers on the window sill. “No,” he said at length. “We’ll give them a chance to surrender to you first. There might be women and children up there.”

“There aren’t,” snapped Pannell. “The boy said so. I
did
bother to ask.
I’m not the ogre you seem to think I am.”

“I never said so,” said the major too nonchalantly. “Still, it would look peculiar if we didn’t give them a chance — given the number of them. Might save my men wear and tear, if they did surrender.” Major Leigh turned and faced the Commissioner with a glacial expression. “You will accompany me under a white flag, Mr. Pannell.” Then he turned and left the room. Pannell allowed himself a quiet curse.

Half an hour later the major, a lieutenant carrying a halberd to which was tied a strip of white muslin, and Pannell picked their way through the brush on horseback to the foot of the hill near the Customs flag. The flag served as a landmark, and without it they would have criss-crossed on the same paths, never coming any nearer their object. They saw that much of the brush had been used as camouflage, and had been cleared away. After returning from Portreach, Skelly had not bothered to have the entrances hidden again; the camouflage was intended to deter the occasional adventurer or the curious. He knew that it could not deter an army. Ten men stood waiting for them in a clearing before the entrance, each holding a weapon.

“Who’s Skelly?” asked Pannell.

A tall man in a black tricorn and a black greatcoat stepped forward. “I’m Skelly,” he said. “And you’re Henoch Pannell.” He paused to smile. “I recognize you, sir. I believe we shared the same table on one or two occasions in Gwynnford, for breakfast. You weren’t very sociable.” He turned and addressed the major. “And you, sir?”

“Major Leigh, of the Middlesex Brigade.”

Pannell said, “We’re here to give you a chance to surrender, Mr. Skelly. You and all your men. The choice is to stand trial, and take your chances with the courts, or to die here, miserably.”

“Then there’s no choice to make,” said Skelly, “except in the manner of death we prefer.”

“I should advise you that Mr. O’Such, or Mr. Smith, or whatever he calls himself, is in custody,” said Pannell. “We received word early this morning that he tried to break into the Gwynnford jail. He succeeded. He is in it now.”

“Who are you?” asked the major abruptly, pointing to a man dressed in the resplendent uniform of a senior sergeant of the Coldstream Guards. The man stood respectfully at a distance behind Skelly, and held a halberd.

“Charles Wilford Ambrose, sir,” said the man. “Formerly of the Coldstream
Guards. How are they, these days, sir?”

“A deserter!” spat the major.

“In appropriate company, Major,” mused Pannell. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised.” To Skelly, he said, “Let us not dawdle, Mr. Skelly. Will you and your men submit to arrest, or not?”

“Your breakfast is getting cold, Mr. Pannell.”

Pannell snorted. “Not as cold as Warren Pumphrett’s corpse,” he said with a grin. “Remember him? A cousin of mine, for your information. And while it’s quite incidental to me and the matter at hand — he was a bounder, wasn’t he? and your wife wasn’t the only one he dallied with — that piece of work of yours hasn’t been forgotten. It will be up to the courts, of course, if you come out of this alive.”

Skelly’s face was expressionless. “By God and my country, let justice be done,” he replied.

Pannell was disappointed that he got no argument from the man. But now that he had met Skelly face to face, he had a change of mind as he studied the figure in black. He saw no fear in the man’s face, nor concern, nor regret. Nor even defiance. There was a priestly air about him, together with a vibrancy one did not associate with priests. The man exuded self-assurance of a kind Pannell had never encountered in other smugglers he had caught. The self-assurance had nothing to do, he was certain, with whether or not the man expected victory or defeat today. This was no wily criminal he was talking to, but someone more threatening. He was a rebel. And now Pannell wanted him alive. An idea was taking shape in his mind, a radical idea, though he did not realize it. He sighed. “Major, we have no further business here.” He reined his mount around and moved away.

“One moment, Mr. Pannell,” said the major. He pointed to the flag that fluttered over the cave entrance. “By what right do you… men… presume to display that?” he demanded of Skelly.

“The right of free Englishmen,” said Skelly. “We have altered it to suit our republican sentiments, you may have noticed.”

“You will kindly remove it!”

Skelly shook his head. “It’s as much ours as yours, Major Leigh. Perhaps more ours than yours.” He turned his head to address the man in scarlet behind him. “Thank you for the point, Mr. Ambrose. It was well taken.”

“And ably parried, Mr. Skelly,” replied Ambrose.

The major jerked his mount around and cantered back onto the path
through the brush, followed by his lieutenant. Pannell turned once in his saddle, without looking at Skelly or his men, and with a desultory wave of his hand, said, “Good morning to you, gentlemen.”

For two hours, Major Leigh’s howitzer and two cannon pounded the hill. Residents of Marvel and neighboring villages came to watch, and were astounded by two things: that this was Skelly’s hideout, and that it had been here for years; and the ferocity of the military action to destroy the gang. Some residents came to watch with sadness or grief; these were mostly women whose secret husbands or lovers were inside the caves. Most of the spectators were Whig families, who brought picnic baskets and parcels of food for the troops.